A messy, grungy, fist-pumping lo-fi blast from L.A. noisemonger and self-proclaimed “beatpunk” Todd Drootin. Recreating the frenetic guitar strumming and bass-guitar pounding of punk and the head-bobbing pulse of hip hop is nothing new to Drootin, whose previous releases on No Type and Deathbomb Arc exploded the staid preconceived notions of so-called IDM. With a decidedly cheap and energetic aesthetic, Drootin’s live gigs have become likened to watching a mad scientist off his Ritalin. Think Kid606 on cough syrup — fun-filled and furious! 8/10

Composer Paul Dolden arrives at his fourth album on the prestigious canadian label empreintes DIGITALes. As you probably know if you ever heard something on this label you know they often deal with material that’s “learned music”, but at the same time their rooster is full of musicians with a big personality: the obvious result is that the most of their releases is simply out of ordinary. Paul Dolden shows he combined such a big range of influences that’s hard to think how he can mix it all together, do you think I’m exaggerating?… ok, who else ever mixed together “contemporary classic music” (it reminds me basically of many contemporary american composer of the last half of Twentieth century), keyboards that “taste” of Mike Oldfield crossed with Philip Glass, fast guitar-solos in the style of Satriani tripping for Paganini exercises and a good amount of studio production? The first four tracks are different movements of Dolden’s latest work: Entropic Twilights, The Gravity of Silence. Resonance #5 and The Heart Tears itself Apart with the Power of its own Muscle. Resonance #3 (great title!!) instead have been composed in the midst of the nineties, but the personal style of this composer was already formed therefore it all sounds homogeneous. Can you imagine “contemporary-classic-glam-music”?… well that’s it! I think there’s a lot of irony in the music and in the approach of this canadian: on the cover of this digipack there’s the shadow of a long haired biker playing a violin while flying surrounded by mountains, some guitar necks are hanging on the back of his motorcycle and instead of being followed by gas his bike is followed by notes. I can’t say I’ve been blown away by this cd but for sure I’ve never heard anything like that before.

Conçus à leur genèse pour des mises en scène de Brigitte Haentjens, ces 5 pièces ont été remixées en vue de leur sortie sur cet album. Puzzles est le septième enregistrement du très respecté Robert Normandeau, auteur compositeur sur Rephlex, empreintes DIGITALes ou encore Sub Rosa. Ce disque marque une petite révolution technologique, dans la mesure où il est enregistré sous format DVD Audio «Advanced Resolution» qui au-delà des aspects techniques, procure une écoute incomparable, digne de véritables conditions de concert. Voici ainsi Robert Normandeau rendu dans notre salon aux seules fins d’un concert privé en 5 actes. L’originalité de ce disque tient également à son principe, évoqué par Normandeau dans le livret «cette musique a été composée, comme son titre l’indique, comme une suite de petits morceaux destinés à s’emboîter les uns dans les autres. Mais contrairement au jeu traditionnel, les morceaux de musique ici peuvent s’agencer les uns aux autres dans n’importe quel ordre. Autrement dit, sur le plan temporel et sur le plan timbral, les sonorités utilisées ont été accordées de tell sorte qu’elles puissent se superposer ou se juxtaposer de mille et une manières différentes […]» Ces pièces, venons-y, ont l’empreinte électroacoustique du label empreintes DIGITALes mais conservent pourtant la touche unique de leur concepteur. Une musique subliminale, somatique, eidétique, une musique profondément impressionniste où les touches électroniques et acoustiques de Normandeau nous plongent dans un film sans image (qui n’en nécessite pas nécessairement, d’ailleurs) aux confins d’univers oniriques à la croisée du couple Baron ou des musiques de films d’Hermann. Construites à partir d’onomatopées vocales et de sons de portes diverses, les 5 compositions regroupées par Puzzles s’inspirent de mises en scène célèbres, depuis Marguerite Duras à William Shakespeare, en passant par Lessing pour appuyer son univers d’idées et de préceptes intellectuels. Un voyage unique.

I am not sure if the Dinosaur… in the title is meant to be the dinosaur band who just released a new studio CD, their first in eight years, but let’s hope that in thirty years time, Books on Tape, will sounds as energetic on his new album. Books on Tape is the beat-punk project of Todd Drootin, from Los Angeles. His previous releases were made available as MP3 as-well as on CD and 10” by No Type. On his new release he offers fourteen catchy tunes of punk inspired techno/hip hop music. They are cut with the speed and energy of punk but all created with electronica. Books on Tape likes to play around with the sounds from organ (or perhaps a plug in thereof), creating a fat tune, throwing in a few guitar samples and the occasional vocal snippet. Not every track is up-tempo, but they are all played with a certain rawness that is not seen often in the world of smooth electronics. It may seem that I think this is all just thrown together, but it’s not: the tracks are made with great care, close eye for detail. It progresses from Sings the Blues, adding more variety to the dish, but maintaining it’s raw power.

On the same label, but something entirely different is Nadja. With the previous release I Have Tasted The Fire Inside Your Mouth, Nadja was still a solo project of the omnipresent Aidan Baker, but now it’s Baker on guitars, vocals, drum programming and Leah B. on bass and vocals. Truth Becomes Death is the first release on a ‘real’ CD. When Baker has his solo hat on, playing his ambient guitar pieces, I am usually (not always) quite pleased, but with the first Nadja that wasn’t the case, and also Truth Becomes Death is not much of my coffee. Let me state I like drone rock, I like Earth, Sunn O))), Troum and all the heavy weight ambient music makers, and to a certain extent I enjoy Nadja too. The slow, spiraling sound of a drum-machine set against the wall of guitars, bass and vocal howls is quite nice, at times. But the sound is too full, too dense, with not much air (and probably intended to be like that, no doubt), but it’s a bit too blurry for me. The details are gone, admits in this vast mass of sound. Not bad, but perhaps not my thing to the extent that I would play this very often.

Of much, much more interest is the [DVD-Audio] by Gilles Gobeil, with three pieces for the Ondes Martenot, one of the first electronic music instruments, already built in the early thirties, if I’m not mistaken. The Ondes Martenot is played by Suzanne Binet-Audet, and Gobeil processes these sounds via all sort of manipulation, mostly computer me thinks. In Là où vont les nuages… the instrument is linked to samplers, synthesizers and a sound processing unit, and the two melt together. This is serious music, with the capital ‘S.’ In terms of academic approach, this seems to me a continuation of whatever empreintes DIGITALes has been doing for the last decade. The up and down gliding of tones and sounds: it’s something that has been explored before too, but Gobeil’s electronic work, linking ‘ancient’ technology and to new technology is a very [good] work, which sounds — on this DVD — great. No images, just music is here…